Google To Delete Inactive Accounts Starting December (reuters.com) 42
Alphabet's Google on Tuesday said it would delete accounts that had remained unused for two years starting December, in a bid to prevent security threats including hacks. From a report: The company said that if a Google account had not been used or signed into for at least two years, it might delete the account and content across Google Workspace, which includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Meet and Calendar, as well as YouTube and Google Photos. The policy change only applies to personal Google Accounts and not to those for organizations like schools or businesses. In 2020, Google had said it would remove content stored in an inactive account, but not delete the account itself. Starting Tuesday, Google will send multiple notifications to the account email address and recovery mail of the inactive accounts before deletion.
Good (Score:3)
Dear Google,
You can skip the e-mails. I probably have an account from the days that "Don't be evil" was your motto. I left it alone since it became "Hear no evil, see no evil" and now it has become "Alphabet Evil-in - cor - pora - ted!", I am glad you finally delete my data.
Regards,
Errol
Re: Good (Score:3, Informative)
They don't delete data, they just cut off your access to it.
Also good (Score:5, Interesting)
Dear Google,
You can skip the e-mails. I probably have an account from the days that "Don't be evil" was your motto. I left it alone since it became "Hear no evil, see no evil" and now it has become "Alphabet Evil-in - cor - pora - ted!", I am glad you finally delete my data.
Regards,
Errol
Skip mine as well.
I refused to give you my phone number when your terms of use abruptly changed, now I can't access the account and can't delete it.
Giving you my phone number doesn't improve my security, it only makes it more likely that it'll be in one of the myriad data breeches that seem to happen about once a month. It's also how you correlate numerous online accounts with a single person, it's no longer possible to have an anonymous account if you can correlate the account with other accounts by phone number.
Others have noted that giving away their phone number is OK (correlating accounts, decreasing security) because hey - your phone number isn't private data, and who cares anyway?
But note that your motto used to be "don't be evil", then it was a guideline in your TOS, then it was removed entirely. You've been doing a lot of sketchy things recently, and this matters to some.
So yes,. good. Delete my account, I don't want to associate with you and I can get the same services from other companies.
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Giving you my phone number doesn't improve my security
Did you already have a 2FA system enabled? If not then your statement is blatantly false.
If only Google would delete associated data... (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm fine with Google deleting the account that I've been unable to use for many years, due to Google account security preventing me from logging on. But will Google also delete the associated data it's mined from that account? Or is this just about "inconvenience the user, but don't harm the surveillance...."
Re: If only Google would delete associated data... (Score:3)
That's a great question. I'm afraid they're not in the data deletion business.
For some time I've been doubting to log into the gmail address linked to this /. account. The address was set up back in 2003(?) when gmail was still in beta, and when having a foreign account still sounded like the safer bet. Little did we know back then...
Meanwhile, it's been nearly 15y since I've logged in to anything google.
I guess I'll need to click some confirmation link sent to that inbox when I want to change the email add
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I have an orphaned YouTube account from before the acquisition + migration to Google accounts. I've not been able to figure out how to regain control of it. I reached out to YouTube support a few years ago and they basically told me that short of DMCA'ing to get the content removed (which I don't want to do, I just want control of the channel) there's absolutely nothing I can do.
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Yes!
I have an account I used a very long time ago from my dumb student days and forwarded to the real account I use now.
At some point I lost access to it. I don't think it was hacked, but I have no sweet clue what the password or security questions are set to. Anyway, the address itself was involved in several data breaches, and now I get a constant stream of sketchy shit hitting it (attempts at creating all manner of accounts, responses from those stupid petition sites that don't validate email, etc). I fi
Accounts up for grabs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Are the accounts going to be available for reregistration? If so, impersonation galore. If not, then people trying to get their accounts back are screwed.
Alphabet is looking to save a dime on keeping accounts available.
And as someone else said, the bastards often try to force 2fa using mechanisms that were never specified to be used as 2fa during registration. So all of a sudden sometimes you need access to a backup email or phone number you did lose, despite having access to Gmail.
And so I'm happy to have a paid email account elsewhere than Gmail.
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Indeed. I looked at their offering back when and decided to roll my own instead. The second option would have been something paid for someplace else where I am a customer and not the product.
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They have historically never allowed re-use of an account even if it has been deleted by the account owner. I doubt that they will shift away from this.
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I had a GMX account in days of yore that was forgotten and aged out. Imagine my surprise when I was able to re-register the same account name.
I'm wondering exactly what Google's "logged into" requirements are. My YT account, attached to GMail (which I only use for GoogleCrap) is logged into all the time, but I almost never use GMail or Docs. But I did once receive a nastygram informing me I had best log into GMail if I wanted to keep the nasty thing.
Which reminds me, there are other accounts languishing god
YouTube as well (Score:5, Insightful)
So if someone passes away their YouTube videos will eventually disappear. More digital history being erased.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a shame. Because they most certainly keep earning ad revenue for dead people. They could at the very least have the decency to keep all stuff up, but no.
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On a long enough timeline everyone's YouTube videos are deleted already, as once-benign content becomes verboten, or even offensive enough that you'd get fired if it went viral on social media.
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Not going to defend Google, but this is consistent wit their "If it's free you are the product" strategy.
If you are dead, they cannot monetize you by showing you ads, so they might as well remove all the data they used to compute which ads to show to you.
Pretty sure they are smart enough to keep videos around that people still watch because they can indirectly monetize those. So Total Biscuit should be save for a while.
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That was the first thing that occurred to me, but why would Google deprive themselves of ad revenue? It's more likely that they will keep the videos up, but stop the person who uploaded them from logging in and making any changes to them (such as deleting them).
If storage space is an issue, Google might also choose to delete any videos with 1) a handful of views and 2) a dormant account
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So if someone passes away their YouTube videos will eventually disappear. More digital history being erased.
And that would preclude any modern remakes of The 6th Sense ...
[staring into his cell phone] ... 's content.
Cole: I see dead people
Re: (Score:2)
So if someone passes away their YouTube videos will eventually disappear.
Dead people generally don't have any control over the performance or playback of their creative works. That responsibility falls on the deceased's estate.
If someone doesn't find value in preserving their own media, then literally nothing of value is lost if it disappears from YouTube.
Only use I have for a Google account (Score:2)
Is testing SPF. Recently they have been requiring it so my emails to some people bounce. And to test that it works I either need to bother some of them or get my own. No other usefulness. Interestingly, Google does SPAM-filtering _before_ testing SPF, so for these tests I have to fake valid content. Whatever the thinking behind that decision is, I really don't know.
Re: (Score:2)
Google is a junk box for me. It's the e-mail address that I give out and rarely check.
Re: (Score:2)
Is testing SPF. Recently they have been requiring it so my emails to some people bounce. And to test that it works I either need to bother some of them or get my own. No other usefulness. Interestingly, Google does SPAM-filtering _before_ testing SPF, so for these tests I have to fake valid content. Whatever the thinking behind that decision is, I really don't know.
Fake valid content?? I just put "test SPF+DKIM" in subject and body of email. It never went to spam folder don't matter who the email is from!
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It gets _bounced_ as spam of I do not do that. If I put in the fake content, I at least get an SPF error in the bounce and can see some relevant diagnostics. That is really ass-backwards. It should check SPF first and only if that is valid check whether it wants to reject it as SPAM. But Gmail thinks it is a good idea to do it the other way round and make SPF testing hard.
The digital library of Alexandria (Score:4, Interesting)
can I put a watch on a name? (Score:2)
There's someone using a specific email that I'd have loved to have gotten but gmail was 'invite only' back at the beginning and by the time I was it, it had been nabbed.
the need for best practices for using cloud drives (Score:3)
This is going to screw up situations where a company puts documents up on Google Drive and the original user leaves the company.
Here's an example of how this. I am consulting in a project where the original software system flow was documented in Lucid Chart and put up in Lucid's proprietary system. The preparer then put only a link to it in a design doc, not any images of the flow. He later was let go. Now we do not have access to the flow diagrams. He placed design docs on Google Drive but did not share authorization access to them nor even data about ID data. Now we cannot locate or obtain copies and we have to manually recreate flow documentation tediously.
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Sorry, but that is not a Google created problem but a poor process by the company. If a company allows information like that stored under anything other than company controlled email accounts then they are simply asking for problems.
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This is going to screw up situations where a company puts documents up on Google Drive and the original user leaves the company.
Honestly if you're in this position then you have only yourself to blame. Why would you leave important documents on someone's 3rd party personal cloud, and one from someone who has been let go at that? It's like sticking a floppy disc to the fridge with a magnet so you don't forget to take it to work. This is not Google's problem, and frankly the company in question deserves everything they get.
Heck even transferring it to the company's own Google Drive will resolve this issue. Anyone as bad with IP as in
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Did it say this applies to paid accounts or only free accounts?
I assume paid accounts will continue as before, idle or not as long as the bills get paid.
No longer a glitch, (Score:1)
it is now a feature?
Another example (Score:1)
Yay, let's cause problems for no reason (Score:2)
My DNS service implemented a new policy but neglected to inform me. Even though I bought a 5-year plan for my domain name, they require me to log into my account every few months or they just automatically suspend my account "for security reasons". I found that out the hard way when one day my web site disappeared, and after I re-verified my DNS account, it took a few days for the TTL to filter down the line.
Yeah, I paid for 5 years, but if they don't feel like fulfilling their obligations, they just nuke